


The Only World I've Ever Known Sleeps Beneath The Waves

by boltschick2612



Series: Shattered [7]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Los Angeles Kings, M/M, POV First Person, Tampa Bay Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:43:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltschick2612/pseuds/boltschick2612
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to break and start over again in order to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only World I've Ever Known Sleeps Beneath The Waves

**Author's Note:**

>  Told in first person from Vinny's point of view. Takes place immediately after Vinny calls out to Simon in 'In My Field Of Paper Flowers'. Story not true. Title from "Never Go Back" by Evanescence. Thanks and enjoy!

I had tried, so hard and so many times, to put into words this whole surreal experience I'm going through. The pain...the pain is indescribable. The best I can do is try to put it into terms I was familiar with, something I could wrap my mind around, because this situation surely doesn't fit that description. I guess....I guess it was like breaking a bone. Not the immediate break, but everything that comes after...setting the bone, splinting it, and letting it mend.

It's like I had been walking around with a temporary, makeshift splint around what was broken, and it had given me the false impression that everything was healing the way it was supposed to. It wasn't. Every movement sent raw nerves scraping over the jagged edges that had been exposed when everything broke, and I had let it heal that way. I was lulled into believing that all pieces were in the right place, all the fragments were put back together, and that I was speeding down the road to recovery.

During the day, the pain is a dull, deep ache. It's the kind that radiates from the inside out as a bone heals. At night...that was a different story. Night was when the pain was stabbing, grating, sharp, and it became painfully evident that the shattered fragments were not where they belonged. Raw nerves scraping over broken fragments of bone.

Do you know what they have to do when a bone starts to heal without being put into place? They have to re-break it, realign it, set everything back in the proper place. Then start the healing process all over again.

Calling out to Simon....that was my way of breaking the bone again.

The door slowly creeps open, and I hear his soft footsteps padding across the carpet towards me. I can't help but pull the covers up to my chin and tremble as the horrific details of tonight's dream come rushing back to me. Night after night, I've been held victim to my mind betraying me as I sleep. The scenes sometimes change, but the feelings are always the same. Hopelessness, despair, sorrow and terror.Sometimes, the dream will find me cowering on the floor of the hospital bathroom, looking up into Henrik's stormy eyes as he tells me all the details I don't want to hear. He looks different when he's looming over me, shaming me. In the real world, he's a cool and calm picture of sophistication. In here, he's the devil in a suit and tie.

The worst dream, the one that seems to be haunting me more and more, finds me sitting by the side of the road, watching as they cut Brad from the twisted wreckage. I can feel the wet concrete as I run my fingers over it's rough surface, and the rain soaks through my denim jeans. As the cool night air chills me, I shake violently from cold and fear. I can even taste the bile that rises in my throat. A hand closes around my heart with each scream that escapes him.

Oh. Yeah. I can hear him screaming inside the car, and I'm helpless to do anything except sit to the side and watch the whole scene unfold.

I'm suddenly very aware of how quiet it is in my room, too quiet, and I break the silence to offer Simon a disjointed explanation.

"I needed...need..."

All attempts to form a coherent sentence stop when the bed sinks under the weight of Simon crawling in next to me. His breath brushes against my cheek as he whispers into my ear.

"Shh...S'ok"His voice is wrapped in a thick blanket of fog, and I wonder how much sleep he's lost because of me. How many nights had he stood outside my door, watching over me, before I called out to him? How long had he waited for me to break the bone again, so that the pieces could be set back into place?Each thought seems further and further away as his fingers trail lightly up and down my arm. I actually have to try to remember details of the dream now. The soft sound of Simon's light humming filter into the dark room. It's some old French song that I haven't heard in forever, and don't remember the name to. My eyelids grow heavy, but I fight it. I don't want to slip into a world where I'm immobilized while Brad fights for his life, screaming through the pain. I can't go back there.But maybe....maybe with Simon by my side, that world won't find me tonight.

Maybe the pain won't be as stabbing.


End file.
